Left Behind
by gerardolopoly
Summary: Simon's ghost, traumatised, shocked and confused after his death on the Tower of Heaven, seeks out Erza for comfort and closure... and instead finds himself observing her nascent relationship with Jellal, his childhood friend and murderer. (Short one shot; probably some ooc; negative portrayal of Jerza although I ship it)


**A/N: I wrote this because I was bored and it's really not my best. It's basically just Simon's reaction to Jerza (which is my OTP but this fic really doesn't portray it positively so be warned). This may seem a bit ooc but I'm not sure**

For almost an eternity, I am everything. I am molten, disconnected, individuality dissolved in the limitless oceans of Earthland's magic. I do not drift in the current, because I am the current. I do not see, because I have no eyes. I do not remember, because I am not myself but everything and nothing all at once, the discordant harmony of countless silenced voices.

If I do not come to understand what I have become, I know I will never cease to be it. So I gather myself together as best I can, pulling at fleeting wisps of identity, kicking for the surface like a drowning man. I find a flash of deep scarlet, and I find it beautiful. Then I find a tower of crystal and a sickening vortex of darkness, and at last I remember the man named Simon.

So this is what death feels like.

It's less painful than I had expected: less painful than life was. I have returned to myself and my body seems intact although I know it's no more than an illusion. I'm drifting in complete darkness, complete emptiness - a maddening absence of sensation. So, predictably, I reach for _her_. I reach for Erza.

From here I can feel the world's clashing mass of souls in all its conflicted glory. Despite my circumstances, the people and souls around me used to give me hope. I used to believe all people were fundamentally kind, that everything was interconnected and that the world would always resolve itself. Being enslaved, lied to and eventually murdered, however, tends to put a damper on those kind of beliefs.

I don't know why I'm still here. I can only assume that I need some kind of closure... but throwing myself in front of that spell to save the woman I still love seems more than final enough.

Maybe I just need to speak to Erza, and then I can lose myself again and be done with it.

Yet somehow she is not here.

Shock ripples through me, fear that she is dead, that my sacrifice was for nothing, that he killed her and his plan succeeded after all - but then I do sense her presence.

It is little more than a whisper, an echo rippling gently through my infinity of space, but it is enough to tell me that she is alive: she is simply dormant, sleeping. I don't know where, or for what reason, but I know - I hope - that she cannot remain that way forever.

Time is nothing to me here, so I tear through the congealed years for the moment of her awakening.

It takes longer than I would have thought: perhaps six years, or seven, or eight. Always her spirit is there in the periphery of my senses, unwavering, never ageing, in some strange stasis. It makes me miss her all the more. I begin to think of her - and in my distraction I overshoot.

I don't know when I stop scrambling through time, but it is later than I had intended. Erza is awake now; I can feel the infectious energy and power of her presence, and it is all I can focus on.

It has been years for her since I died, but I refuse to believe she has forgotten me. Besides, I can't bring myself to stay away; for me it has been but seconds since I felt myself being torn apart by what felt like a black hole, felt everything I was fade to a memory so quickly that now all I can think of is the horror of human fragility. I am lost, frantic, fevered. I need her clarity and her guidance. I need to talk to her just one more time; I need to make sure that she is happy. So I reach for her.

I think I must have unconsciously locked onto her strongest nearby moment of emotion, because when I finally find her, the perpetual strength of her presence is shot through with anger and sadness and joy. I halt, lingering on the edges of perception. I don't know what I am now - a ghost, an echo, a memory - but I appear to be a corporeal being, standing within the world although I cannot touch it.

For the first time since my brutal death, I open my eyes.

Erza is standing on a clifftop, the sun melting like red-hot metal across the anvil of the sea behind her, blending with the falling scarlet of her hair. For a moment I can think of nothing but how beautiful she is. I want nothing more than to greet her, nonchalantly, quietly, as though my death is nothing more than some fleeting misfortune - and I am about to do just that, but before I can move I see the man beside her.

A long cloak concealing a posture which speaks of shame. Blue hair rippling in the wind, mimicking the iridescent waves below. That inexplicable tattoo curling around his right eye. The deep scarlet of that mark used to remind me of the hair of the woman I love, but all of a sudden it makes me think of blood, because this is the man who tried to kill Erza, and, in doing so, killed me.

How can he be here? My brain is reeling in shock and revulsion and disbelief and fear as the memory of my death slams through my mind again and again. The purpose of my sacrifice was to protect Erza and her friends, to give them the opportunity to defeat him; I had allowed myself to hope that I might be avenged. But of course - that wasn't possible. Erza's faith in Jellal has always been unconditional. _Just like mine in her._ Even as he __stood atop that tower, attacking her and threatening her with the serrated edge of insanity in his words, she honestly believed he could be saved. She is wrong; I am _sure_ she is wrong. There is something twisted, something broken deep inside our former friend. My instinct is to throw myself between them once again, to protect Erza at all costs - but now, on this clifftop, there is nothing to protect her from. _So... what can have happened in the span of seven years? Why are they not fighting now?_

But they _are_ fighting, I see, or at least she is seizing the collar of his cloak and she is arguing, or pleading, or preaching, and one of them trips and they are falling, and I want to reach out to catch her but I am powerless, invisible, ethereal, and they are landing, on top of one another, close, _too_ close... and they don't move for three seconds, four, five... and now I have a sickening sense of dread because I think he is forcing himself on her and I want to run or scream or cry out because I am so _powerless._

Then I see the truth, and it is almost worse.

Whatever is happening between them is far from one-sided; he appears as surprised as she is, and then her hands are reaching to draw him closer, her fingers losing themselves in his hair. When I was a small boy in the Tower, just daring to discover my feelings for Erza, I shyly asked her what she felt for Jellal. The blush which rose in her cheeks then is the same as the one which tinges them now.

They are talking in lowered tones inaudible from my vantage point... and then the sentences dissolve into single words which can only be each other's names as her lips part and he leans downwards and -

I close my eyes, slamming down the partition between reality and the dark realm of my afterlife. I cannot watch this betrayal any further; it hurts more than a direct hit from Altairis, and I should know.

 _Just how much can change in seven years?_

I sought __out Erza in order to find comfort and clarity, reassurance that my sacrifice had meant something. And as much as I want to believe my motivations were selfless... I wanted closure too: some indication of whether what I felt for her had ever been reciprocated. I guess this is my answer.

Just as I have always loved her, she has always loved him. Back in the Tower I was always so desperate to prove myself to her. I knew Jellal cared for her as much as was possible at that age, and that she returned his feelings - I knew my efforts to mean something to her were futile - but that didn't stop me from trying. When she was dragged away by our captors, when he tore his way through a corridor of guards in an effort to reach her before she could be harmed, I wanted to scream that I could have done it; I _would_ have protected her... I simply wasn't strong enough. She is unbelievably strong, and so is he, in a different way... and I realise that Erza does not need my protection, or anyone's... but neither does she need someone who requires hers.

I am not strong enough. I am too weak even to confront her, to ask her what happened: what could _possibly_ have happened that could lead her to forgive and forget; to forgive him and to forget me. Yet despite everything, I still trust her. I know there is a reason for this horrible and unbelievable turn of events. There must be. Perhaps she was right, and he was not beyond saving after all. Perhaps his sense of justice, once so warped and corrupted, has returned.

But still the betrayal stings my ethereal body like acid seeping from within. Whatever steps Jellal might have taken to redeem himself, the fact remains that he _killed_ me. Do I really mean so little to Erza that she can forgive that? And what about him? How can he guiltlessly accept the love of someone so flawless and kind, knowing the darkness which festers in his mind and the blood which taints his hands? I am angry and confused beyond belief, the echoes of an unvoiced cry of helplessness swallowed by the eternity of death which surrounds me. I cannot confront them. I cannot make myself seen, for fear of the pain it would cause Erza. So I simply stay, and watch for as long as I can bear it.

Time passes like the flicker of pages in the wind. I watch as they part, she returning to the light and laughter of her guild, and he to what seems to be some crusade of redemption. I watch as they meet again in the blue-lit shadow of a cobbled bridge, and as the cries of seven dragons flood the city streets with destruction. I watch as they carry each other to safety, and somehow I come to understand that Jellal is far from guiltless; that he has taken the pain dealt by his sins and turned it inwards, his mind circling through repentance after repentance with an almost feverish devotion. Erza has forgiven him simply because he cannot forgive himself.

I find Kagura too, but the chance for one more conversation or a simple goodbye eludes me. It seems that her life was destroyed along with mine; her vitality and future twisted into a singular, vengeful purpose. I want to unwind the constricting, buried knots of her hatred, tell her that I do not want to be avenged - I simply want her to move on, and to be happy. How strange, then, that I cannot quite yet bring myself to want the same for my beloved Erza.

Finally, I watch as snow ghosts through the crystal air of a Christmas night, drifting with the light stumble of crunching footsteps as Jellal guides a drunk and exhausted Erza home. Even shivering, with the soft scarlet of her hair brushing across her shoulders like the snow which speckles it; even with the matching red which spreads across her cheeks (no doubt due to an unfortunate combination of alcohol, the biting air, embarrassment and his proximity)... she is beautiful. I can feel his loneliness, her jealousy and frustration dissolving in the chill wind as they find solace together.

I cannot help but feel that my arm should be the one circling her waist, mine the coat that she clutches tightly around her, mine the shoulder that her scarlet hair tumbles onto as she rests her head; mine the face that she glances up at with an expression that I cannot read... or dare not. He does not deserve this, and he knows it. Yet it could never have been any other way. Only they can keep up with one another. Only they can understand one another. I have simply drowned in their wake, and these are my silent screams, this infinite darkness the water which pushes the air from my lungs. If seeing them almost kiss hurt like Altairis... then this is Sema.

Nevertheless I think - I think I might have underestimated myself.

As my existence finally fades, as my death throes end, I hold less hatred within me than I would have thought possible. I love Erza, of course, and I hate Jellal for what he did to her; for what he did to all of us - I would not be human if I didn't. Yet I die with a smile, as I did back on the Tower, because in these moments - these visions - whatever they are - I see that she has finally found the happiness she has always deserved. I could never give it to her, and she has found it with the one person who least deserves it, but she is happy.

And perhaps that is all I need.


End file.
